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Trainee pilot dies after aircraft crashes in Gujarat's Amreli, probe on

A trainee pilot was killed after his aircraft crashed in Gujarat's Amreli district on Tuesday. The incident took place around 12:30 pm near the Giriya Road locality of Amreli town. According to Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kharat, the pilot was on a solo flight and had taken off from the airstrip in Amreli before the aircraft went down, the cause of which is yet to be determined, news agency PTI reported. "The trainee pilot was flying solo when the aircraft, a trainer model operated by a Delhi-based aviation academy, crashed into a residential area," said Kharat. Eyewitness accounts suggest the plane hit a tree before crash-landing on an open plot near Shastri Nagar, which helped avert additional casualties. The aircraft caught fire after the impact, but no other injuries were reported. Kharat said the aircraft was operated by a Delhi-based flying school with a training base at Amreli airport. Firefighters from the local unit reached the scene and brought the blaze under control. A police investigation is underway, and an accidental death case is being processed. "We received information about a plane crash at around 12:52 pm. The team immediately reached the spot as soon as the information was received. We controlled the fire. The pilot of the plane was seen inside. The pilot was sent to the hospital. The pilot died in the accident," news agency ANI quoted fire officer HC Gadhvi as saying. Not the first case Several trainee and young pilots have lost their lives in aircraft crashes recently during training missions. On April 2, Flight Lieutenant Siddharth Yadav, a 28-year-old Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot, died when his Jaguar fighter jet crashed near Jamnagar, Gujarat, due to a technical malfunction. Earlier in 2025, three IAF fighter jets (including Jaguars and a Mirage) crashed during training sorties, resulting in one pilot death and other injuries. In December 2023, an IAF flying instructor and a cadet were killed when their Pilatus PC-7 Mark-II trainer aircraft crashed during a routine training flight near Hyderabad.